Danny Chatigny, 3, borrows a stethascope from Nicole Gauvreau, right, during a visit to the Minute Clinic on Monday for his mother, Jessie Chatigny, who has an ear infection. Chatigny is holding baby Phoebe.
— Peggy Peattie / /UT San Diego

Danny Chatigny, 3, borrows a stethascope from Nicole Gauvreau during a visit to the Minute Clinic on Monday to listen to his mother, Jessie Chatigny, who has an ear infection.
— Peggy Peattie / /UT San Diego

Jessie Chatigny, left, with son Danny, 3, and holding baby Phoebe, talks with Nicole Gauvreau, a family nurse practitioner about her symptoms of an ear infection in the Minute Clinic on Monday.
— Peggy Peattie / /UT San Diego

Danny Chatigny, 3, tries to get a glimpse of the inside of his mother's ears, as nurse practitioner Nicole Gauvreau, right, examines his mother Jessie Chatigny on Monday for an ear infection.
— Peggy Peattie / /UT San Diego

The CVS Minute Clinic is becoming popular for all types of medical needs, from flu shots to sports physicals for kids returning to school, ear aches and the common cold.
— Peggy Peattie / /UT San Diego

The nation’s major drugstore chains are moving beyond simply doling out drugs and Kleenex. They’re opening more in-store clinics and offering more health-care products in part to serve an aging population that will need more care.

It’s also a response to the massive U.S. health-care overhaul, which is expected to add about 25 million newly insured people who will need medical care and prescriptions. And drugstores are offering more services as a way to boost revenue in the face of competition from retailers such as Safeway and Walmart that have added in-store pharmacies.

Beth Stiller, a divisional vice president at Walgreen, the nation’s largest drugstore chain, said the changes are necessary because time-pressed customers have come to expect that they will be able to do more than just fill a prescription at drugstores.

“We live in a world where personalization and ... high-touch service is much more expected,” agreed Helena Foulkes, chief health-care strategy and marketing officer for CVS Caremark, the nation’s No. 2 drugstore chain.

CVS runs more than 650 MinuteClinics that are staffed by nurse practitioners or physician assistants and handle largely minor illnesses like pink eye. CVS also offers acne consultations and monitoring of chronic conditions such as diabetes. The company aims to operate about 1,500 MinuteClinics by 2017.

In San Diego County, Sharp HealthCare provides medical oversight for MinuteClinics inside 10 local stores.

Michael Murphy, Sharp chief executive, said when the deal was announced with CVS in April that it extends the health system’s reach into the retail world without requiring a large capital expenditure.

“The consumers have clearly demonstrated that they are looking for access points when physicians’ offices aren’t open, on weekends and extended hours,” Murphy said.

The three-year agreement between CVS and Sharp calls for a growing level of integration, with the drugstore clinics eventually adopting the electronic medical records system used by Sharp’s main doctor groups. That way, if patients first stop in at a CVS clinic, they can be referred to a Sharp doctor if more advanced levels of care are needed.

Gradual shift

Nationally, the move toward expanding products and services has been gradual. Until about five years ago, the major drugstore chains focused on adding stores, not services. Then when states started allowing pharmacists to provide flu shots, it paved the way for drugstores to begin offering other immunizations for diseases like pneumonia and shingles.

And after Congress passed the health-care overhaul in 2010, drugstores started adding more in-store clinics to help serve the newly insured population that will be created by that law. At the same time, grocers and other big retailers have started beefing up their health-care offerings to compete with pharmacies for customers.

Locally, Palomar Health has led the way in connecting clinics and supermarkets, opening what it calls “Expresscare” clinics inside Albertsons grocery stories. It now operates four clinics, in Escondido, Rancho Peñasquitos, Temecula and San Marcos.